I twist, I turn, I spin, I dance…

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Monthly Archives: February 2011

This is another snippet of my weird and wonderful life. How my strained relationship with food started. This is carrying on the ‘St Trinians with a slash of Hogwarts’ page, so if you want to read the beginning part click on there! xx

In all the million of things that were on the list to pack for this place, I remember the first and simplest thing that had been forgotten was a school bag. So for the first 2 weeks or so I went around with my new books, pens, pencils etc in a carrier bag. I was so embarrassed. It’s amazing how the simplest things, to us as adults don’t seem a big deal but to children are huge. I always think of that feeling when I am dealing with children at school now and how the smallest thing can really upset them and that I am to take that seriously.

So my daily routine consisted of, a fire alarm screaming to wake us up at about 7, we had to be out of bed instantly or we would get screeched at by the purple dragon, (matron) take wash bag with us to bathroom, wash etc, dress for breakfast. Queue for breakfast….now food, well that’s a subject all of its own, me and my relationship with food. We go back a long way. Starting with the lack of it when I was a child, having to fight over food with five other grown men at the table, like hyenas at a kill, I was definitely on the bottom of that food chain, to the point where, I was so hungry that I ate the dog biscuits and cow cake on the farm just to ease my hunger pains. So that wasn’t a good start in the old food relationship and now I was in a situation where I was in a ballet school, we were weighed and measured every Saturday to make sure we were not putting on to much weight compared to our growth. I was always growing too tall for their liking and I was classed as over weight in their eyes. I was told weekly for five years that I was fat, you do begin to believe it. We were all on strict diets, our food intake was monitored, we were never allowed any sweets of any kind, so here I was again, hungry, I was a girl growing, changes in the body etc and I was starved, we all were. Food was our main subject at any part of the day, I think if this happened now the school would be shut down. I always remembered meeting up with a old nurse from the school, one of the nice ones, at a big reunion in London Covent Garden years after leaving and she said to me, she was always worried about us girls, she said we were starved and that she wanted to report the school, then she conveniently lost her job. It was quite comforting to hear someone say that, that it was noticed and wasn’t all in our heads.

Living life with a chronic illness is definitely not easy. But I do my best to push through all the barriers this illness puts in front of me! In my heart and mind, I believe maintaining a positive outlook on all situations in life will carry us through to much better times! I hope you find the information that I provide both helpful and inspirational!